The Next Day

 

They'd never dredged the like of it: 

a mound of lego, sodden books

and posters, toys, pig-Latin plaques,

ceramic shards that once were mugs

and, threaded through the seeping haul,

scarves of scarlet, bootleg yellow and

authentic gold, a bolognese 

of guilty conscience - things 

they'd not be seen with down the tip. 

'They must have done it in the dark,'

one muses, 'were they queueing up

or side-by-side lined down the quay?

Bet no-one met another's eye. 

Was it like this when Jimmy died?'

An older head shakes. 'Nowt to chuck

except the medals. Few enough

of those about. And shellsuits could 

be scouser costumes. Nowt like this.'

They sat there silent, paced and smoked. 

The youngest spat: 'They must have known.'

A Work of Mercy

Looking at a dog the night before

she dies, she will remember

a conspiracy of kindness:

the cat they called Old Smokey,

smuggled in from the back lane

and spoiled with sprats or cuts of ham

behind their mother's back,

and how, one night in winter

at their window, averring

in near-chorus that he must be cold, 

they'd hear their mother say

you think I'm stupid, but I know

what you get up to, then

go on then, let him in. 

(for Evelyn Fish, 1950-2022)

First World Contempt

I would like to make him live one day

the way he has made others live.

I would like him to wake up in rubble

with dust in his belly and throat,

and walk, on blistered feet, to somewhere 

somebody said there might be food

and find none. I would like him to know

those who raise his plight in the rich nations

are dragged off to prison 

for the words that they have 

on their T-shirts. 

I would like him to know

jokes more callous than his,

and less funny, are being made about him 

by the golf club bores 

and the roundabout painters. 

I would like him to learn what it's like 

to feel first world contempt. 

I know that I ought not to want this.

That it is uncharitable,

even to him; rather, what I should want

is for a new spirit to grow in him,

inspire him to right his own wrongs

then go out to right more. 

This is what I should want. 

It is not what I do want. 

A Whole Civilisation

 

When planes flying from our bases

'destroy a civilisation' tonight,

what will we say? 

When people of that civilisation 

scream rage in our faces,

what will we say?

'Woman, I am not one of them'?

Will we tell them that this

is not who we are? 

Will we express bitter contrition 

and say not in our name?

I remember one night, back in Brixton,

my friend Nila saying to me 

"You say 'them' when you speak of the English,

but you're English. It's not 'them', it's 'we'."

I don't know what I'll say

when our planes fly tonight

sowing death. But I will not deny

that, as much as I hate it,

they fly in my name;

and when the blowback comes

I will accept that I, just like the rest of us,

am as legitimate a target,

a more legitimate target,

than two-hundred schoolgirls 

or a six year old child in a taxi,

and will accept my civilisation 

- about which I once pompously worried -

died long ago;

and pray,

for the rest of the world,

that its corpse may stop shaking.

Good Friday poem

 

Noose pin worn by members of the Israeli knesset to show their support for the introduction of the death penalty for Palestinian political prisoners. 

your job is this

a man lies down

across two planks

you hammer nails

into his wrists

into his feet

the nails are long

the nails are thick

the nails are sharp

your job is this

you hammer nails

you do not flinch

you do not stop

your job is this

to never stop

to never flinch

to never think

of them as wrists

to never look

them in the eye

to never hear

the words they cry

you hammer nails

your job is this

your job is this

your job is this